Lileks 2, Sullivan 0

A few months ago, James Lileks fisked Andrew Sullivan to shreds about Sullivan's proposal to increase gasoline taxes in the US.

Today, Lileks eviscerates Sullivan's long-foreseen (but not long-awaited) endorsement of Kerry. It's really like shooting fish in a barrel because Sullivan's thought process in his piece is so moonbat-stupid it beggars belief that 18 months ago Sullivan actually had some clarity of thought.

Here is Lileks' best counterpoints (Sullivan in yellow, Lileks in aqua):

I want this war to be as bipartisan as the cold war, to bring both parties to the supreme task in front of us, to offer differing tactics and arguments and personnel in pursuit of the same cause.

"Bipartisan as the cold war?" At the start, perhaps, but not after Vietnam. Not after Nixon. The cold war was no longer us v. them, good v. evil, but us v. the future, clueless patriotism v. post-nationalist utopia. It wasn't a difference of "tactics and arguments," but a difference of perspectives and objectives. Rewind the calendar to the 80s; there were two different approaches to the Soviet threat:

Coexistance, whereby we sign pieces of paper that outlaw six classes of missiles, permit development of three others, lay out frameworks for future talks on reducing expansion of experimental tests for another class, accept Soviet client states in our neighbodhood, and oh, we exchange circuses and ballet troops. Peace!

Up Yours, Ivan, whereby we push back against any attempt to plant the hammer and sickle in our hemisphere, fund those who resist your imperialism, match you rocket-for-rocket in Europe’s front yard and spent eleventy billion dollars on stuff you can neither invent nor afford. War!

* * *

[Kerry] knows that if he lets his guard down and if terrorists strike or succeed anywhere, he runs the risk of discrediting the Democrats as a party of national security for a generation.

Is it instructive to note which side Sen. Kerry instinctively inhabited in the 80s? Apparently not. Because now he knows that if terrorists strike, he runs the risk of discrediting his party. Got that? Runs the risk. Of discrediting his party. Of all that the theats he might face, apparently that's the one that seals the deal. Look: The guy voted against the first Gulf War. What else do you need to know? UN thumbs up, global test, allies coming out the wazoo, and he voted no. Because that’s who he is. There are lots of Democrats with hard-core pro-defense no-nonsense smite-the-fascist records. He ain't one of them.

Lileks gets it. Sullivan's lost it.